Five Moves of Doom: A “Hammerhead” Jed Mystery

In Devlin’s uneven third mystery featuring pro wrestler-turned-gumshoe Jed “Hammerhead” Ounstead (after 2020’s Rolling Thunder), Hammerhead, who has joined his father’s PI firm in Vancouver, British Columbia, is approached by Elijah Lennox, an Ultimate Fighting Championship veteran. Lennox, who now operates a gym that he’s made free to at-risk youth, wants Hammerhead to find his “custom-made, white-leather, diamond-encrusted, UFC Light Heavyweight Championship belt,” which had been on display in the gym before it was stolen. Lennox is convinced that none of the young men he was mentoring is responsible, despite many of them having criminal records. Eventually, Hammerhead learns of a related murder and must clear himself of suspicion. The surprising ending compensates only in part for over-the-top situations that make suspending disbelief difficult: at one point, Hammerhead sees “a former IRA operative turned bartender singing in front of a nearly six-foot Amazon woman whipping her shoulder-length, blonde, red-and-blue tipped hair around in circles while dancing between a spritely dwarf and a colossal Pacific Islander.” Devlin isn’t going to win any new fans with this one. (Sept.)